Portable flash drives often misplaced, lost

A new survey by U.K.-based Credant has confirmed what all of us have known all along: Workers are careless with their portable storage devices. Indeed, a staggering 4,500 USB flash drives were found to have been left in the pockets of clothes sent to the dry cleaners, not to mention the thousands more handheld devices left behind in taxis by harried executives.

Sean Glynn, chief marketing officer at Credant referred to the regulatory situation in the United Kingdom, "This could now cost a company up to [$811,000] with new powers given to [the U.K.'s] Information Commissioner's office to fine companies who have not sufficiently protected customers details under the Data Protection Act."

Beyond regulatory fines, the other concern has to do with the leakage of personal details that are inevitably stored on these devices.  In the wrong hands, these data could result in identify theft, which could result in financial loss or great inconveniences.

The obvious solution here is to employ the use of encrypted USB drives--though preferably one whose security is not broken. Use of software encryption will also work, though not storing data that will result in a data breach in the first place is probably the best solution of all.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld

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